What's Missing?

We know from the gospel that we are saved through faith and the blood of Jesus Christ. Christ justified us, meaning the propitiation of Christ made us right before God, our sins purged. As we grow, Christ sanctifies us through the same blood. But we are missing one thing here. There is something more than the lack of guilt, the forgiveness of sins, and skipping the trip to hell. There is more to salvation than these ideas. These ideas are a means to gain something better. Most Pastors today are not preaching this idea, yet in 1 Peter; Peter makes the connection explicit. Okay, what connection; what are we missing? God, we are missing God in the picture.

The Answer: God

1 Peter 3:18 ESV, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,” Peter wrote it right there; That He might bring us to God. Jesus brought us to God to know, love, and be illuminated by God, enthralled with Him. When we feel and know God this way, as companions, as a Father, we become an echo of God, a mirror of God. Listen, my friends, having God is a billion times better than justification. To know Him, sit with Him, and live with Him is better than anything we can imagine. Yet, Pastors often fail to preach from the pulpit the connection between the sins borne by Christ and the sin-killing demands of the Christian. The sin-killing link to salvation is what is missing. There is an allergic distancing in preaching today from imparting the sin-killing requirement of salvation to the Christian. No one wants to call a sinner a sinner. Well you are, I am, we are all sinners

Peter's Words

In 1 Peter 1:14-16, Peter writes, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” Christ calls us to be holy; it is the blood connection to Christ. We are grounded by verse sixteen because God is holy, and we shall be holy. We can never reach the purity of God. He is transcendently pure, on another level, the rarest of all diamonds. However, Peter is telling us to conduct ourselves holily because Christ ransomed us from sin; the propitiation of Christ saved us from our sins. So, for the priceless Son of God who paid Himself to God the Father as a ransom, Christ released us from sin and commanded us to resist evil, effectively killing it in our lives. He died in the flesh so that you could kill your sin and live in righteousness. This blood oath is an effective connection. It is imperative to live your life holily because Christ bought your freedom with the most precious, infallible resource of the Christian life, which Christ shed on a tree so that you might be free, His own blood.

Kill the sin in your life, rip out the eye, cut off the hand, that we may do as Christ commands; live a holy life. May the peace of the Lord rest upon you.